SALOME [
reproachfully
]. Just heaven! with my heart bleeding, I speak to you of our daughter and you are angry! You, then, are her father? Let us suppose I was dead: would it not be your sacred duty to provide for her future?
OSSEP. Am I not providing for her, you wicked woman? Have I not presented three or four young persons to you as sons-in-law? For that matter, they would still be very glad to take her. They are young, clever, and industrious, and, moreover, persons of our condition in life. But who can be reasonable and speak to you? You have got it into your head that Nato's husband shall be an official, and there you stick. It is not your daughter's future that makes your heart bleed, but your own ambition.
SALOME. What more can I say to you? Are they, then, your equals? Who are they, properly speaking? Who are their parents?
OSSEP [
springing up
]. And who are you, then? Whose daughter, whose wife are you? Perhaps you are descended from King Heraclius; or perhaps you are the wife of a prince!
SALOME. How the man talks! Were your parents of better rank than mine? What? Say!